Opposition supporters took to the streets in parts of Nigeria as partial results from Saturday's regional polls showed the ruling party ahead. In Bauchi in the north, demonstrators blocked the road to an election office. Other incidents were also reported. The polls, for the country's 36 state governors and assemblies, were marred by reported irregularities and violence which left more than 20 people dead. They were seen as a key test ahead of next weekend's presidential vote. But the outcome of the regional polls is as important to many Nigerians as the presidential election. State governors can be extremely powerful, controlling budgets of around $1bn, especially in oil-rich states. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

The US military has determined that more than 40 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded by US marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Citing the US commander who ordered the probe, the newspaper said there was no evidence that the marine special operations platoon came under small-arms fire after the bombing, although the marines reported taking enemy fire and seeing people with weapons. The troops continued shooting at perceived threats as they traveled miles from the site of the March 4 attack, said Major General Frank Kearney, head of Special Operations Command Central, according to the report. They hit several vehicles, killing at least 10 people and wounding 33, among them children and elderly villagers, The Post said. "We found ... no brass that we can confirm that small-arms fire came at them," Kearney is quoted by the paper as saying. "We have testimony from marines that is in conflict with ...http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070415/pl_afp/usafghanistanmilitaryrights_070415060652

Jalal Sharafi's psychiatrist says the diplomat is constantly reliving the trauma of his torture, including mock executions by his US and Iraqi captors. Doctors treating the second secretary of Iran's embassy in Baghdad Jalal Sharafi say the psychological and physical damage the Iranian diplomat endured are "overwhelming." Reports have emerged that former Iraqi intelligent operatives had been involved in Sharafi's torture under the aegis of CIA. The doctors told journalists in a press conference on Wednesday that it may take years for Sharafi to recover from the ordeal he went through while in US custody in Baghdad. Doctor Ali-Reza Hosseini, a dermatologist and Doctor Ali Sharifi a trained psychiatrist, explained the medical procedures the Iranian official has undergone in light of the injuries he sustained while imprisoned by US forces. ...http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=5769&sectionid=351020101

In the past month, as a new security crackdown in Baghdad began, U.S. forces arrested another 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees jailed in two U.S.-run facilities in that country. The average stay in these detention centers is about a year, but about 8,000 of the detainees have been jailed longer, including 1,300 who have been in custody for two years, said a statement provided by Capt. Phillip J. Valenti, spokesman for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations. "The intent is to detain individuals determined to be true threats to coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces and stability in Iraq," Valenti said. "Unlike situations in the past, these detainees are not conventional prisoners of war." Instead, he said, they are "diverse civilian internees from widely divergent political, religious and ethnic backgrounds who are detained on the basis of ...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401554.html

Iran's Supreme Court has acquitted a group of men charged over a series of gruesome killings in 2002, according to lawyers for the victims' families. The vigilantes were not guilty because their victims were involved in un-Islamic activities, the court found. The killers said they believed Islam let them spill the blood of anyone engaged in illicit activities if they issued two warnings to the victims. The serial killings took place in 2002 in the south-eastern city of Kerman. The case raises serious questions about vigilantes in Iran taking justice into their own hands and undermining the rule of law. Up to 18 people were killed in just one year, but only five of the murders were tried in court. According to their confessions, the killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Others were suffocated. One man was even buried alive while others had their bodies dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6557679.stm

Troops with powerful rifle scopes scanned mountain ridges for elusive, black-clad Taliban infiltrators. Afghan soldiers, hit by a roadside bomb, pressed on into the valley. U.S. Special Forces swept through the sinister alleys of its main settlement. The strike, carried out by about 200 American and Afghan government forces, was supposed to sever a major insurgent infiltration and supply route from neighboring Pakistan to Islamic fighters deep in Afghanistan. But the attack didn't work an object lesson in why 47,000 U.S. and NATO forces are struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban movement. Field officers say eradicating fighters who cross the porous 1,470-mile border is like trying to drain a swamp when one cannot shut off the streams feeding it. Pakistan's failure to dam those streams has deepened the five-year-old conflict, they say. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3043232